


Ideal Woman

by Senatsu



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Compare and Contrast, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-04
Updated: 2015-08-04
Packaged: 2018-04-12 23:02:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4498038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Senatsu/pseuds/Senatsu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amagi Yukiko is an embodiment of all of Japan's historical values.</p>
<p>Kujikawa Rise is everything the modern world could hope for in a girl.</p>
<p>But there is one common denominator that binds them together in understanding, past and present - being "ideal" is rarely ideal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ideal Woman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted this yesterday but because I'd written the orginal draft ages ago and saved it on AO3, it saved as being posted on that date? Or, rather, it said it was posted yesterday but it last "updated" when I originally saved the draft? Which, I was able to figure out how to edit one date but not the other, so the fic was still counting itself in the listing as being updated way back at the beginning of July. So, reposting. SORRY GUYS

Shimmering raven hair. Skin of pale alabaster. Small, narrow face. Long lashes, warm brown irises, perfectly slanted eyes. Thin waist, tiny feet. Quiet, dulcet voice. Demure mannerisms.

Yukiko Amagi is the embodiment of Japan’s most long-prized aesthetic traits. A living porcelain doll.  
  
_(But she is not porcelain – she is marble. She is marble and there is iron in her spine.)_  
  
When she dons her beloved rose-colored kimono, it is as though she has stepped right off the yellowing parchment of an ancient scroll – weathered ink and watercolors now breathing and vibrant. 'A work of art,' as some have called her.  
   
When she greets the guests of the ryoukan, words soft and dainty; when she mixes the tea just so and pours it precisely the way it’s always been done; when she kneels and bows and clasps her hands together as a young woman of her stature does, it makes her parents proud.  
  
_(She thinks that her picture-perfect self in the mirror pales in comparison to the Yukiko that comes alive in battle – she does not thirst for blood but there is a thrill, a tightening of the stomach, a roiling, boiling energy that blazes through her veins like Konohana-Sakuya’s fire. Her weapon splays out with a particular snap and she thinks, with a smile, that her parents could never have foreseen what shape her fan lessons would take, how years of ballet would dance her right through the raging inferno of a war against shadow-creatures.)_

The young men in town (and often, to her deep chagrin, the older men as well) never seem to tire of admiring her from afar. Sometimes, they admire from all too close. And really, "afar" is never quite far enough. The leers are sleazy and disgusting and make her gut roil with unease; the shining eyes of admiration and awe are _stifling_ , and she sometimes finds herself clutching the fabric above her chest, desperately hoping to somehow release the tension that binds her lungs and dulls her vision and threatens to swallow her whole. It's as if the Yukiko Amagi that they see stretches over her like a second skin, plaster-of-paris rolling over her, tightening and hardening, preserving her in this form.

_(Everyone has their hidden faces, she knows well now. Everyone reflects a little differently - the beauty of humans, adaptable creatures that they are - with the changing of the environment, of the timing and occasion, of the people ebbing and flowing around them, like the multitude of facets on a gem. It's still the same gem, after all: just viewed from different angles. But somehow, that knowledge is little consolation in the face of weight of the false expectations that people thrust upon you.)_

The worst of it, though, is when such burdens of expecations come from the people nearest and dearest to your heart. From her parents, she at least understands, even if she hasn't quite forgiven them for it. Tradition runs in their veins; the old ways pump through their arteries. The expectations they have settled on her shoulders from birth like a mantle are the very same that were given to them by their own mothers and fathers. The way it is, the way it has been, the way it will always be; they cannot see beyond these self-inscribed borders.

_(What good is life if it is predictable? Life_ is _change, and change is life; one without the other and you are merely left with stagnation. Yukiko thrives on change. Change is exciting. Change is necessary. Change may be sorrow, but it is also joy. It may be loss, but it is also gain. What is old evolves and becomes something new; what is broken makes way for better. Without change, time ceases to hold meaning, and what is valuable grows cheap, worthless. Yukiko wants to change - herself, the inn, the people around her... not remain bound by these rules that stifle and choke out the change in life.)_

Yes, the worst is when your very dearest snares you with such bonds. It is so very hard, because, as with anyone who truly loves you, they have only the best of intentions. 

How do you tell the girl you've been in love with since childhood that the shining eyes of admiration she turns your way give birth to a pedestal beneath your feet, lift you above her - out of her grasp - where you do not want to be, where it is so cold and so lonely and so hard to breathe, draws a line between you as if she herself is not also so very dear and precious? It is an answer not yet within Yukiko's reach.

Still she has not lost hope - life is change, and change is life, and she sets one foot forward at a time, traversing the unknown path ahead. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm hoping to have one Yukiko chapter, one Rise chapter, and one combined chapter. We'll uh, we'll see how well that works out.
> 
> As is common fashion with these things, what happens is that I know what I'm doing going into the piece, and by the end I've lost my original train of thought and no longer have any idea whether the piece still makes sense. 
> 
> OH WELL. YOOOOOLOOOOO


End file.
